Tuesday, March 03, 2015, 4:47 p.m.

Mourning, tight security on Tiananmen anniversary

BEIJING — Yin Min held the ashes of her son and wept, she said, as she marked 25 years since he was killed in the crackdown by Chinese tanks and troops on protests at Tiananmen Square. Outside, guards kept a close eye on her home while police blanketed central Beijing to block any public commemoration of one of the darkest chapters in recent Chinese history.

"How has the world become like this? I don't even have one bit of power. Why must we be controlled so strictly this year?" Yin said in a telephone interview. "I looked at his ashes, I looked at his old things, and I cried bitterly."

China allows no public discussion of the events of June 3-4, 1989, when soldiers backed by tanks and armored personnel carriers fought their way into the heart of Beijing, killing hundreds, possibly thousands, of unarmed protesters and onlookers.

On Wednesday, scores of police and paramilitary troops patrolled the vast plaza and surrounding streets in Beijing's heart, stopping vehicles and demanding identification from passers-by. Chinese censors scrubbed domestic blogs and social media websites of comments marking the crackdown.

Some relatives of the crackdown's victims were allowed to pay their respects at cemeteries — but only with police escorts. Others did so at home under surveillance, expressing frustration at the restrictions placed on their remembrances.